Tag Archives | Playstation 4

If the Playstation 4 really is a distant thought on Sony’s mind, then the latest rumor from DigiTimes is a longshot: Sony’s not only thinking about a new console, the publication’s sources say, it’s starting production this year and will launch the Playstation 4 in 2012.

DigiTimes doesn’t provide many details on the rumored console itself, except that it’ll have body movement-based controls like Microsoft’s Kinect for Xbox 360. Foxconn and Pegatron Technology will reportedly assemble the PS4, with a planned shipment volume of at least 20 million units in 2012.

That shipment estimate is the biggest reason to be skeptical of this report. Sony launched the Playstation 3 mid-way through its 2006 fiscal year, and only shipped 5 million units through Q4. After that, when Sony started reporting sales instead of shipments, the PS3 took two years to reach 20 million sales. For 20 million Playstation 4 shipments to make sense in 2012, initial demand would have to be unprecedented.

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Just a few months ago, the Playstation 4 was not even a thought on Sony’s collective mind — at least according to Sony Computer Entertainment head Kaz Hirai.

But now, a different executive has fessed up. Work on a future Playstation platform is already underway, says Masaru Kato, Sony’s executive vice president and chief financial officer. His comments came up when asked to explain higher research and development costs to investors, Eurogamer reports.

Sony’s next video console, which at this point has no name or release date, won’t require the kind of huge investment that made the Playstation 3 unprofitable for years, Kato said. With the Playstation 3, Sony invested in its own semiconductor facilities, but that seems unlikely this time around.

(UPDATE: Kato tells the Wall Street Journal that his remarks on research and development costs were actually in reference to Sony’s next-generation portable system, and that his other comments were a “general statement,” rather than an acknowledgement that the PS4 is in development. Sounds like spin to me, but whatever.)

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